September – The Tale of Two Jigsaws

30 September, 2005 Rothera

The Tale of Two Jigsaws

Our Midwinter song was, ‘Wake Me Up When September Ends’. Well woken up we have, that is woken up to the tremendously enjoyable pastime of jig sawing. Starting with several 500-piece jigsaws we have slowly built up confidence to tackle much bigger jigsaws with both a 1500 and 2000 now under our belts. It doesn’t stop there, Paul Best one of our resident motor vehicle mechanics took it upon himself to lead a small team including himself and Andy Lole (well known in the jigsaw world) to tackle a 3D jigsaw of a skidoo. This puzzle had never been completed in Antarctica although it had been attempted several times. Less experienced jigsawers had claimed it was impossible!

What else happened in September? In September we had a scenario. We have Scenarios all the time in Antarctica. In fact I find it difficult to tell what is real and what is a scenario a lot of the time. However for the September scenario I was directly involved in, I even had the job title ‘HELPER’. This is my story. At about 10am the fire alarms went off, people mustered as required and set about their allocated tasks. The simulated fire was extinguished and Ed McGough ,Gary Masters and Jules Klepacki discovered a scenario casualty. They were a little disappointed having made their discovery for three reasons the first being they were trying not to get too involved in the scenario, second at least one of them had 5 minutes to the end of an auction on EBAY and third, the scenario casualty was Joanna Coldron our Doctor who was going to do the hospital stuff. All this being said they behaved very professionally and within minutes our doctor was in her surgery surrounded by some ER / CASUALTY wannabes. This was the opportunity,’Doc School’ (Mondays 5-00 until 6-30) participants wanted, to test their medical knowledge. I saw with my own eyes this group of individuals carefully put our Doctor back together again. I cannot mention all that were involved because I have set myself two tasks on this September diary the first being to complete before the end of 2006 and the second is to mention everyone but only once. So if you were involved in more than one thing in September I am sorry but you will only be mentioned once. Anyway our Scenario Stars were Rob Smith and Matt Brown (Surgeons) Dan Smale and Paul Mann (Nurses) and Andy Boat in charge of holding the doctors head straight. Well that’s not strictly true the person who held the head straight is required further on in the diary so I have had to do a bit of juggling.

Also in September evenings and weekends have been taken up with Film making activities in preparation for the Rothera Winter Film Festival, which will be held in October. For further information please contact Kirk Watson.

Bridge Night this month had a change of venue. Usually held in the bar Monday evenings it was instead held at the caboose (a small hut on a glacier). This was because two Bridge Players Andy Barker and Simon Herniman were staying at the caboose for essential training so their respective partners (bridge) Andy Porter and Isabelle headed up for a couple of rubbers.

For most people the word MASH is just a popular preparation of our favourite potato. September has seen MASH being used to pre fix the word Party. It was an opportunity for our entertainment team (cannot be named for obvious reasons) to turn the old generator shed into a set from the series that started of as a film and has already been named twice. The set was superb and all had an enjoyable time. Andy McConnachie turned up as a military policeman, Kat Snell scrubbed up well in operating theatre clothes and Mr Tattersfield came in his dressing gown.

Met Training for everyone heading to Fossil Bluff and Sky Blue in the summer. We had lots to learn so the Met team Agnieszka Fryckowska and someone else had their work cut out. There was a PowerPoint presentation on what we had to do when observing the weather. Then we were put into small teams and the standard procedure of popping a balloon which contained a test paper with a blow dart made from the end of a pair of shoelaces, from a sleeping bag got under way. Having worked out the weather we were observing on the test paper we then had to radio back the observation to one of the met team where we were marked on accuracy of the observation and using correct radio eticut.

That is all For September

Yours Sincerely Glen Stewart ( Carpenter)